Ophthalmologist vs 目医者

I was curious if there is some sort of difference in meaning in Japanese and that’s why they make the distinction.

No, my 研究社 dictionary has that as a meaning. It’s just a case of WK not having an exhaustive list of meanings.

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Jisho has this as one of three synonyms, so I think that rates it as being added, especially as oculist is.
I wouldn’t know what an oculist is (I’d probably think occultist) from hearing the word, but I certainly know that an ophthalmologist is an eye doctor, so I’d say it’s a more common synonym personally.
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I’ve also popped this thread into Feedback, hope you don’t mind ^^

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Oh no worries, I’m just realising I should have checked jisho before making a post.

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No, I think you were quite right to put that as an answer and expect it to be accepted, personally, so you were quite right to post it :slight_smile:

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If you want, this is a good extension that I use:

It’s often best to always consult a third-party source for vocabulary like this as WK will basically just choose what they consider the “most important” meanings. This will inevitably lead to situations like this where they, purposefully, do not always include an exhaustive list of meanings that you could find in a dictionary. That userscript uses EDICT to provide additional information for items.

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I added optician as a synonym for this which I’m sure is wrong but I DON’t CARE.

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Hmm, looks like optician is 眼鏡店 (though it’s not on the WK vocab list), which kinda makes sense, since 眼鏡 is glasses, but we’ll not learn that till 34, hehe

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Yeah, if you want to be technical while an eye doctor can also do the duties of an optician, an optician is often not a doctor. But, hey, you are allowed to add whatever you feel. :slight_smile:

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I think that’s blacklisted on there. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Some oculists and ophthalmologists are opticians in optician shops but not all opticians in optician shops are oculists or ophthalmologists.

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Who says that an eye doctor can’t also be an occultist, who are we to judge :stuck_out_tongue:

And some oculists and ophthalmologists are occultists, but not all occultists are oculists or ophthalmologists.

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If all oculists are ophthalmologists and some ophthalmologists are occultists then some oculists are definitely occultists.

TRUE or FALSE

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Wait… I know this one…

TRUE

We sure do like to take threads off on tangents on this forum, don’t we?

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OFF TOPIC

It’s that POLL chaotic energy

ON TOPIC

Something about eyes

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Actually on topic

Apparently
an optician is a sales person who can examine eyes
an optometrist is a primary eye doctor
an ophthalmologist is an eye surgeon
an oculist is any of the above

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Hmm, they are healthcare professionals whose primary specialism is eyes, but they aren’t doctors - at least, not in the UK. Nor the States, it seems:

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This topic has been covered before:

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Who says oculist, ever? It’s even marked as dated by google.

A dictionary… which is probably where some of these synonyms come from?

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